Approaching the Dao-1

The Approaching the
Dao commentaries will start extremely detailed and get less so as we go
along and you get more familiar with what we’re doing here.Because this is the first commentary, we’re
going to give you a crash course in some elementary Chinese decoding while looking
at the text line by line.

Grammar

It is sometimes said that Chinese has no grammar at all, or
virtually none.On looking at the
different translations of this marvelous text and how they were made, you’ll
discover that Chinese has a rich and complex grammar.Unfortunately, it is wholly indiscernible to
the non-native and native speakers aren’t always entirely sure what’s going on
either.But at the end of this exercise,
you’ll have a few guesses.Let’s start.

1.The first three
characters

Here’s a little bit of grammar that makes no sense and
perfect sense:When a character can mean
several things, it most likely means the thing that makes the most sense
(though this rule is far from hard and fast).Here’s an example (道 is defined on theDao-talk page):

道Dao, way, road, path; to speak, to be spoken

可 can

道Dao, way, road, path; to speak, to be spoken

“Dao can spoken” is what we get.Because Chinese has no “a”, “the” or plural
markers, we’ll decide if any are called for.So let’s summarize what we’ve got so far:

道可道= (way-can-be spoken) = A way can
be spoken./The way
can be spoken./Ways can be spoken./The
ways can be spoken (standard version italicized).

2.The particle也

If you visit the Dao-talk page, you’ll see that 也is defined as “also,
a particle signaling the end of a phrase.”Let’s see how this works:

道可道= (way-can-be spoken) = The way
can be spoken.

It’s just a simple sentence.Adding也can firm up this sentence if it
comes at the end, like adding “amen” or “indeed” in English.

道可道也 = (way-can-be spoken-indeed) = The way can be spoken indeed.

But if it comes in the middle of a
sentence, then it marks off the preceding part of the sentence as a phrase or
clause.Here we see it in both usages:

道可道也…非恒道也 = ( [way-can-be
spoken]-marker… not-lasting-way-indeed
) = The way that can be spoken is not
the lasting way (indeed).

3.The second sentence… just like the first

In finishing that example, we’ve
gotten through the first sentence.Look
at the second sentence to see all we’ve just learned applied all at once:

名name, to name, to be named

非 not

可 can

恒lasting, constant, eternal

名name, to name, to be named

名name, to name, to be named

也also, a particle signaling the end of a phrase

也also, a particle signaling the end of a phrase

Making our choices as before, we
get “The name that can be named [first half] is not the lasting name [second
half].”

This may seem like a lot, but the
things about the Dao that confuse also tend to repeat.So far, we’re through the first two
sentences.In fact, the next two
sentences are almost identical to one another, as are the two after that.We’ll talk about them on the next page.